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Talk:The Thinker (Computer)
Unproven references :(The following speculation was removed from the article as per the BioShock Wiki:Trivia Policy ~'Gardimuer' [[User talk:Gardimuer|{ 'ʈalk''' }]] 15:27, August 27, 2010 (UTC)) *The Thinker may be a reference to the General, a super computer with an Artificial Intelligence from the British television series ''The Prisoner originally aired from 67 to 68. Like The Thinker, the General has answer to everything. *One of the recent screenshots which has splicer grafitti saying "THE THINKER KNOWS" might very well be a reference to the 1930s American radio serial and pulp magazine character, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shadow%7CThe Shadow whose famous tagline was, "Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows..." Does the Thinker have control over Rapture? I just read the page and I want to be clear on some point: I don't think the Thinker has any control over Rapture (possibly apart from Minerva's Den). If I'm not wrong, from a logical point of view, the Thinker only processes data and sends notifications to the control organs of the city, or run pre-programmed protocols. To cement my point, Reed Wahl mentions in Wheels within Wheels that the Thinker intentionally erased the data he receives from the progression of Delta and Sigma, not that it let them lose himself. Also there are 3 unused announcements related to Delta's progression: In all 3, the Thinker only takes notice or run a protocol, but does nothing to help Delta bypass the many obstacles Lamb place before him. The Thinker can't be compared to AI characters such as GLaDOS or SHODAN who had absolute control over the systems they manage. So that is to say, we should rewrite a bit the page to avoid implying that the Thinker is a second Rapture Central Control. Pauolo (talk) 11:25, May 31, 2015 (UTC) : I think it's said somewhere that The Thinker controlled many automated systems, like Atlantic Express trains and public bathyshere navigation, but then again those could also be controlled manually if The Thinker was ever offline. I see you're point but it seems strange that such a large advanced machine would be needed just to transfer messages from one part of the city to the other. : Night at the Kashmir (talk) 14:50, May 31, 2015 (UTC) ::I think you're referring to the first message of this section: BioShock 2 Public Address Announcements#Rapture Central Computing. Automation is not just a matter of who controls what, it's mostly a matter of regulation. For example, switching a light on and off is binary, but what about pressure? You need the pumps to maintain a steady pressure by playing on a few parameters, but if one pump fails or even one captor, you need to change those parameters accordingly to not overload the pumps, or on the contrary, to not have them doing nothing at all. Automation really is only stable as long as you can produce an algorithm to react in any possible situation. For that, the Thinker has to know how to recognize those scenarios (hence "The Thinker Knows") and to react accordingly. Of course anything in automation can be operated manually, hence why we have emergency shutdown switches, which prevents horrendous accidents and costly damages in case the algorithm is faulty. ::Rapture has the big disadvantage of being under the sea. Moving around isn't easy and having to track down system failures through kilometers of water would not help at all (see Market Maintenance Code, Navarro had to track the pump issue from Hephaestos to the Farmer's Market) unless if you have a clear idea where to look. Just knowing where the errors in short time are is well enough, and The Thinker had the capacity of moving data at the speed of thought, which is kind of a miracle for the 50s-60s. Also if Wahl had control over Rapture through the Thinker, he could have just drown the city by falsifying data and be good with any annoyance while making out his predictive equation. Pauolo (talk) 15:58, May 31, 2015 (UTC) Rapture Operational Data Interpreter Network 'Interpreter' -- simply monitoring things and spotting problems before they cause failures. The system then alerts the human personnel to the issue, who then do the fixing/adjusting -- automatics would be quite limited and usually were simple self-regulating devices AT the location (ie- opening a door automagically can be done with an "electric eye" WITHOUT having to run wires miles back to 'The Thinker' for EVERY door). The utility of simple systematic monitoring would be enough (and be possible in the City's early days before Porter was able to make the portrayed 'smart' computer). 01:25, January 26, 2016 (UTC) :Yup, you're right about those small systems, though I was thinking of industrial processes and such. The automatic doors seem to work quite fine on their own without requiring a supercomputer, and programming emergency procedures (flooding for example) should have been easy enough without RCC's help. Although, RCC could have been manufacturing those systems too. I don't think they only relied on The Thinker for making money, or else Porter and Whal would have never been able to build the Thinker in the first place. :Btw the Thinker can't be simply linked with anything outside Minerva by wires, because it would cost a ridiculous amount of resources in installation and maintenance, and wires can't extend infinitely. The only answers I can think of for communications with other systems or maintenance personnel are radio signals (since underwater radio in Rapture seems to work surprisingly well) or punch cards delivered by pneumo tubes. Pauolo (talk) 15:54, January 26, 2016 (UTC) :You could multiplex to send the telemetry over just a few telephone wires (from each part/section of the city). Selector relays (not even needing transistors) could switch between a local set of sensors converted to tone data values and connect thru to the central collection in RCC. Fire alarm telegraphs were used in the 1870s (and earlier) :Such data need not even be computer processed, just centrally monitored/recorded - all those weird wall mounted paper 'printout' devices could be something related to that, and have mechanical/analog type threshold ability to work off the incoming data to register 'alarms', which the facility's personnel would then manually act upon. :You also could have 'analog' computers which predated digital systems which were used to simulate various systems like power/water flow/usage for planning and such (like heat distribution from Hephaestus). RCC itself would have started with early digital computers for billing/accounting and scientific/engineering number crunching which realworld DID save alot on labor for those financial/commercial jobs. : 09:55, January 28, 2016 (UTC) ::I was thinking of something like that. It's not even like such systems would have a lot of variables to be treated for regulation (take a PID controller for example), so basic multiplexing could work. I wonder however if that would not make systems easier to hack, like sending false regulation data to security systems and doors to bypass said security. That could explain how Lamb was able to overload the pumping station in Siren Alley. ::Also, I figure RCC more crunching numbers for others first than building branded computers, though they could have contracted McClendon Robotics or any other business for the manufacturing. Pauolo (talk) 20:47, January 28, 2016 (UTC) - There would be dedicated phone-type lines (the system probably would have been planned into the City from its start), and tapping into them all you could do is disrupt the communication, as there didnt need to be actual control of anything through those lines (personnel at the location do whatever repairs/adjustments manually, or upon/via the local systems, as there are just too many different seperate things that would have to be controlled and thus requiring significant automation of each(most/all) and also there being much that couldn't be done via signalling, ie- mechanical repairs ). Sofia Lamb flooding Sirens Alley may have been more mislabeling the controls or predamaging the system or via planted radio controlled explosives (or just some lackeys doing it manually and then dying). The original system with Direct control might be too odd to make it happen, as the local systems would have failsafes to prevent error/stray signals from doing such catastrophic damage/actions (and even manually working the controls to make such an event happen). The pumps likely wouldnt even be set up to be able to pump IN (no reason for such an operation and such would be a safety liability its design would try to avoid allowing). Computer technology was very new/expensive and moving very fast in the 40s/50s and they probably brought in outside (surface bought) systems to do Raptures initial computing, and probably cloned them as the first 'Made In Rapture' systems until their utility (saving money) was made so obvious to go to the trouble of building more sophisticated systemry (probably with surface contacts obtaining new useful tech information -- as the Surface world was at that time doing 100s of times the research and development as could possibly be done in Rapture -- cloning such even would have been a major achievement). 02:01, January 29, 2016 (UTC) :What I meant was, one could send fake data directly from RCC for the technicians to apply on those systems, eventually acting on their safety, security or performance. Still, technicians usually notice inconsistencies due to work experience so I don't think it could have worked at all. :Yes, I imagine damaging the pipes so the water isn't pumped outside anymore could work as well. I was thinking the pump could have some sort of tank to change the water's pressure before pumping it out. Sabotaging level indicators would mean the tank would implode at one point due to exceeding its capacity. But I guess I'm underestimating a bit too much the technologies Rapture could have. :I agree with you, at some point Rapture's scientists and engineers would have to copy the surface's technology, or at least bring in new able people to increase the work force and advancement in any field (research, industry, etc...). Despite all its wondrous technologies, Rapture really stagnated by being cut from the surface, all for the cost of secrecy and safety. Pauolo (talk) 20:48, February 3, 2016 (UTC) Rapture Status Updates The following was removed from the Behind the Scenes section: *The Thinker mentiones some action performed by Subject Delta in real time, such as him lifting the transit lockdown in Pauper's drop, Sofia Lamb causing the floading of Siren alley, and Subject Delta using biometric scanners in Fontain Futuristiscs. My question is why was this removed? Aside from the repeated misspellings, I don't see much wrong with this. We should add that these notices were recorded but not included in the final version and thus are BioShock 2 Removed Content, but that does qualify as Behind the Scenes info. Unownshipper (talk) 04:39, November 23, 2017 (UTC)